What’s New

2017-03-17: Due to circumstances beyond our control, CPSEN Symposium has been postponed for at least 2 years. It is likely it will be held in 2019.

2017-01-05: It has been decided the Symposium 2017 will now take place on Tuesday, April 4th, 2017.

2016-10-12: CPSEN held an NCR Networking Meeting on October 12th at which an excellent speaker, Scott Stevenson spoke, a Panel discussion was held and the 2016 joint CPSEN-Excellence Canada Public Sector Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, CMM, CD.

2016-04-28: CPSEN has organized an NCR Chapter Networking meeting for May 18th, to be presented with event partner CareerJoy. Those interested can register using the online registration process available in our Coming Events block found on this and our Home Page. A link also is available here – just click on Networking meeting. Follow this link to view promotional material for this meeting.

2016-04-06: Eight brave souls overcame the obstacles presented by the second major snowstorm of the winter to meet at the Interis offices – hosted by Board Member Craig Marchand. It was a very productive meeting that established:

a). The name: CPSEN-Excellence Canada Symposium 2017;

b). The location: the Canada Aviation & Space Museum;

c). The date: Tuesday, February 7th, 2017.

d). The theme: “Delivering World Class Public Services: from Ideas to Impact”

A good deal of the meeting time was taken up with spirited conversation around the theme but, in the end, a consensus was reached. The Board now will be setting up a Planning Committee for the Symposium that is expected to have resources drawn from both CPSEN and Excellence Canada. In addition, there will be a thoughtful review of the Fee Structure that is expected to reflect an increase for Symposium 2017. The Fees have remained relatively steady for a number of years.

2016-03-10: At a meeting of the CPSEN Board this date, a discussion of options for the next Annual Event led to a number of conclusions:

a). It was decided CPSEN would return to previous practice and hold the Annual Event each February;

b). The next Annual Event will be known as the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Network Symposium – 2017; and

c). It is anticipated the Date, Location and Theme will be announced early in April.

2016-02-11: CPSEN’s first NCR Chapter Networking meeting of the 2016 season was held yesterday at the Indigo Hotel. It was a most successful meeting that welcomed Karen Jackson, Senior Advisor, Healthy Workplace Strategies, Excellence Canada who provided a mini-workshop on Mental Health in the Workplace. With Karen was Samantha Munro, Carleton University’s Healthy Workplace Co-ordinator. There were 63 persons registered for this meeting – a capacity crowd for the hotel’s Indigo Room. Our visitors are invited to visit our Networking Meetings section or follow this link to our 2016-02-10 meeting report.

2016-02-09: On the eve of the first NCR Chapter Networking Meeting of 2016, CPSEN is offering the initial announcement of our 2016 annual event – the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Symposium. The initial planning calls for an event not unlike the 2015 Excellence Fair but it is anticipated there will be some actions that will make our 2016 event one that should not be missed. To have an initial look, please go to our Excellence Symposium Home Page.

2016-01-28:The inaugural meeting of the new Board Advisory Committee (BAC) was held this date in the Cedar Room at 440 Laurier Ave., the location of the CPSEN National Office. While not all BAC Members were able to attend, a good meeting was held that sought to review the goals and objectives of the Committee and to develop a plan for future work. The meeting was attended by Phil Grandy, the CPSEN Chair and there was a good discussion of a number of issues faced by CPSEN duly recorded by the scribe for that meeting, Rick Balson. Members proposed that BAC Member Michael Hart be the BAC Chair and he accepted that proposal. Some decisions were made and Don Wilson was asked to prepare two resolutions for the upcoming meeting of the CPSEN Board.

2016-01-22: CPSEN is an Event Partner for a uOttawa-hosted event, Lean for Government Professional Development Day Ottawa 2016. Click here for further information.

2015-11-22: As some will know, it was decided to help out the Fair Planning Committee volunteer base by engaging several professionals and we believe this was a very good move. In addition to augmenting the regular active volunteer Committee, one of those engaged was invited to propose some changes to the Fair Program. One recommendation was for a change to our Panel activity. It was proposed that we offer a Talk Show in which the Moderator would have a conversation with Panelists and would ask questions to begin a dialogue and a discussion with all Panelists. In addition, members of the audience were invited to Tweet any questions they might have for the Panel. The photo at the left shows the Moderator putting a question to the Panelists.

2015-11-17:CPSEN, as a renewed and incorporated entity formerly CPSQA, held its first Fair today – the 9th in a series of annual events. It was a highly successful event that showed marked improvements over our most successful Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fairs. Pictures and presentations will be added to our Fair website. The photo below shows Wayne Wouters, PC, second from the right, 2015 Winner of the Joint CPSEN-Excellence Canada Public Sector Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award along with, on the left, Past Chair and CPSEN Director, Jean Tourigny with Paul Crookall – CPSEN Director and, at the right, CPSEN Chair Phil Grandy. Anyone wishing to view the video of Wayne Wouters’ speech, click hereand use the password “CPSEN-984”.

2015-10-07:CPSEN held its 2015 Annual General Meeting – a very productive meeting followed by a presentation on Leadership by former CPSQA Chairs John Thomas and Jean Tourigny. A more complete report has been posted to our Networking Meetings page.

2015-10-02;Our Webmaster has prepared a short but interesting video promoting our 2015 Fair with some good images from our 2014 event. Click here to play the video.

2015-09-17:Nomination information has been uploaded to the website Governance page.

2015-09-16: The Membership page on this website has been updated to refect some intended changes to the Membership processes.

2015-08-07:CPSEN Director Jean-Baptiste Sawadogo is our Nominations Chair for the 2015 Elections. He will be accepting nominations and a memorandum will be sent to Members in September inviting volunteers to allow their names to stand for election to several soon to be vacant Board positions. In addition, the National Board is hoping there will be nominations for election to the NCR Chapter Executive. For the past year the Chapter has been managed by National Board member and the Board would like to see a separate slate elected to manage the Chapter. You may communicate with Jean-Baptiste should you wish to do so – by email: nominations@cpsen.ca. Members are reminded that they can register for our AGM, to be held October 7th by going to our website Home Page and registering under Coming Events.

2015-06-25: Our 2015 Fair Planning Committee meeting in one of the 5 meeting rooms at our new Office location. George Chin and Raymond Tsang, though present, were not in view of the camera .

2015-06-06: An Office move is in the works. Our Chair has made arrangements and further details will be available shortly.

2015-05-02: The Registration system is again up and running and those interested in taking advantage of our Early Bird are welcome to register. You may note that the Fee Structure has been updated during our maintenance period to add a Late Registration Fee. The Fee Structure has been greatly simplified and we have added a Free ticket for the Reception we are planning for late afternoon.

2015-04-02: Be advised that Registration for our November 17th Excellence Fair has been closed – temporarily – for maintenance. We should be re-opening shortly.

2015-04-01: A meeting of the Expanded Board was held where key members of the Fair Committee joined the Board members in welcoming three members of the Creative Relations Event Planners organization, who have been engaged to help CPSEN volunteers run the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair scheduled for November 17th. Here is a photo showing the majority of those present.

2015-03-16: At a meeting of the Board of Directors, it was decided that professional event management and agenda development services would be contracted to provide support to our Fair Committee. Two contracts will be signed for work to start no later than April 1st. It is anticipated this added support will lead to significant improvements to the Program and result in a marked increase in the number of attendees.

2015-02-19: Check out our website pages as we now have our new logo at the top of each page.

2015-01-22: Arrangements are being made for an NCR Chapter Networking meeting to be held February 17th, at the National Arts Centre. Details will be available soon but, in the meantime, registration is now open on our Coming Events calendar on our Home and this page.

2015-01-20: At a meeting of the CPSEN Board of Directors today, it was decided that, regrettably, CPSEN had to postpone the Excellence Fair that was to be held on February 3, 2015 until November 17, 2015 due a number of unforeseen circumstances, including the impact of the CRTC’s new anti-spam legislation on our ability to reach our members, resulting in our participant numbers for this year’s fair being uncharacteristically low. It has been a year of change and challenges for our volunteer team and we will be continuing to work toward enhancing everyone’s experience as part of our Excellence Network. Rescheduling the Fair was not our first choice but it made sense based on the parameters noted above. The Board Members expressed the hope that those committed to presenting February 3rd will be available in November. It is expected online registration will reopen early in February.

2014-11-27: During a regular meeting of the Members of the ASQ Ottawa Valley this date, the ASQ Section Chair, Saleem Ansari, and our Chair Phil signed a Memorandum of Understanding whereby an agreement now exists that provides an opportunity for the two organizations to work together to promote quality and excellence in Canada and, more particularly, in the National Capital Region and the Ottawa Valley. In addition, the ASQ Ottawa Valley has agreed to again be an Excellence Partner at CPSEN’s upcoming Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair.

2014-11-02: Good progress is being made with preparations for the first Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair – that follows eight very successful Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fairs – which is being prepared to equal or exceed the value to public sector personnel of the previous Fairs. Our 2015 Fair will take place February 3rd and will again be held at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Here is a link to our 2015 Fair Home Page.

Six Professional Development Sessions will be offered – in two groups of three and we have candidates lined up to be approved shortly. There will be impressive Opening and Closing Keynote Speakers and, in 2015, it is anticipated our Panel will have four panelists. Registration is now open for anyone wishing to take advantage of our Early Bird pricing. The first Early Bird ends December 7th and the second on January 11th. Go to our website Coming Events, move through the calendar to February and proceed with registration. Be sure to do this soon so as to benefit from the Early Bird discount pricing.

2014-10-30: Our Chair, Phil and Webmaster, Don, were invited guests at Excellence Canada’s (EC’s) Performance Excellence Summit and Canada Awards for Excellence 30th Anniversary held at Toronto’s Harbour Castle Hotel. During the visit, Phil and Russ Gahan, Vice-President Operations at Excellence Canada signed a CPSEN-EC Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU provides Program mutual support whereby CPSEN will display or link to Excellence Canada program items of interest including the annual Perforamance Excellence Summit and Canada Awards for Excellence, National Standards developed for Excellence Canada and EC course offerings. In their turn, EC will do the same by providing their website visitors with information related to CPSEN Quarterly Networking meetings and our annual Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair. Further, EC will be a Platinum Supporter for each of CPSEN’s annual Fairs and will be entitled to six “tickets” for our Fairs and all other for Platinum Supporters entitlements. CPSEN will be invited to send up to three attendees to EC’s annual Summit and CAE event where it is hoped we will be able to display appropriately. [Don Wilson photo]

2014-10-28: A very much abbreviated meeting of the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair 2015 Committee met in the Morguard Boardroom. Despite the small numbers, some good work was accomplished.

2014-10-21: Here is the current thinking for a CPSEN logo – as developed by Delsys and used for brochures distributed at the Lean Agility-hosted conference this week and as shared with attendees at the Excellence Canada Performance Excellence Summit and Canada Awards for Excellence event in Toronto 2014-10-30.

2014-10-18: Some Members will recall an earlier announcement that CPSEN would conduct a contest for the creation of a CPSEN logo. Since we have been having some difficulty with our email system and were not sure we could properly contact all Members, we elected instead to seek proposals from three possible suppliers. We contacted the supplier of the logo for the Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fair and two other possible suppliers. We received proposals from two of the three. Following a review of the options, the Board decided to pursue a proposal received from Delsys – one of the CPSEN Supporters. Since that time, a detailed proposal has been received and Directors have been asked to indicate their choice from the four concepts offered. It is anticipated a final logo decision will be made early in the week of October 20th. Marketing material will be obtained and the logo will replace our temporary masthead on this website.

2014-10-09: The new Board of the new CPSEN met to elect Officers and conduct other business in the new CPSEN Office. We are now located in Suite 704, 350 Sparks Street, Ottawa. Our full address can be found on the Directors page of this site. It is anticipated we will be able to hold all our Board meetings here and should also be able to arrange to use our Office for some other sub-Committee meetings – in particular meetings of our Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair Commitee. Our arrangement also allows us access to the Morguard Board Boardroom in this same office complex. This photo was taken shortly after the meeting was adjourned and a number of the twelve Directors had left. [Photo by Don Wilson].

2014-09-30: 28 members registered for our 2014 Annual General Meeting. The meeting was held in the Honeywell Room at Ottawa City Hall. The agenda was quite full as there was much work to be done. First and foremost was the approval of the new CPSEN Bylaws and a report by our Chair that CPSEN was officially incorporated on September 25th. Some fine and timely work was done by our Legal Advisor, Jeffrey Smith, and there was a very full and satisfactory discussion of a number of the Bylaw terms. Those present were then asked to approve a slate of candidates for positions of Directors for the CPSEN Board. After three names were added from those present, members voted in favour of the updated slate of candidates. Further information can be found on the Directors page.

2014-09-29: Those who are considering offering to lead a Professional Development Session at our 2015 Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair are invited to go to our Fair’s Home Page where you will find a short statement and links to our PD Sessions Proposal documents (in English and in French). We are looking for proposals for six Sessions, three to be held in the morning and three after lunch. For convenience, here is a link to our Fair Home Page.

For the information of Members, a Nominations Slate has been prepared which will be voted on by Members at our AGM September 30th. Here is a link to the latest draft of the Slate.

2014-09-26: At a meeting of the Board of Directors, the Chair advised all present that, on the day before, the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Network had received its Certificate of Incorporation. There will be further discussion of the Incorporation at the upcoming CPSEN Annual General Meeting on 2014-09-30. Members are encouraged to register on our Home Page.

2014-09-23: Members are invited to register for our upcoming AGM. Please go to our Home Page and look for the AGM under Coming Events. Click on Register Now and you are well on your way. To allow you to do some advance reading, we are attaching both the latest draft Agenda and the latest proposed Bylaws. Please take the time to review them before the meeting.

2014-09-04: In preparing for our up-coming AGM, there is a requirement to arrange for the nomination of Directors. There is a process available that CPSQA used in 2010 and the documentation has been prepared for this year’s AGM. Our website contains information concerning the Governance of our corporation. Please follow this link to review the website information. Don Wilson, our former Secretary, is Nominations Chair and has prepared a letter to Members that contains Nomination forms for Directors for our National Board and for our National Capital Region Executive. In addition, one can click here and download the letter. If you have someone you wish to nominate, please complete the appropriate form and send it to us. You either can scan and email the completed form to CPSEN at nominations@cpsen.ca or you can mail the form to us at the address listed on the form.

2014-08-27: Members are invited to go to our Coming Events column on the website, check out the September calendar for two events. The first is our NCR Chapter Networking Meeting on the 17th. The second, recently added, is for our Annual General Meeting (AGM). Members are encouraged to register for this meeting to be held on September 30th. A dinner will be provided but space is limited. If you wish to be involved in the confirmation of our new Board of Directors, learn about our incorporation and have an opportunity to network with fellow-Members, be sure to sign up before it is too late. Follow this link to register.

2014-08-21: Our Chair, Phil Grandy, is pleased to announce the appointment of Joe-Anne McKittrick as CPSEN Secretary – succeeding Don Wilson in that position. Joe-Anne was previously the Secretary for the Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fair Committee. Please welcome Joe-Anne when you next see her.

2014-08-15: For the information of Members and others, work is under way to incorporate our organization federally in accordance with the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. This will mean that we need to update the CPSQA Bylaws so that they reflect our current mission, vision, and values. It also will mean that we need to prepare a slate of Officers and Directors to be approved at an Annual General Meeting being planned for later in September. At the AGM we will be endorsing our new Bylaws. It is intended that CPSEN will be incorporated by September 1, 2014.

2014-07-15: Visitors to this page are invited to review the Record of Decisions from the meeting of CPSQA Directors and Ottawa PSQF Committee members held 2014-03-20 by following this link to Retreat. Scroll down to view the entry for 2014-03-20 for further information regarding our Retreat.

2014-07-10: Work began that will lead to incorporation of our new organization. It is anticipated incorporation will be achieved by September 1st.

2014-06-23: Members from the 2014 Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fair Committee met to review lessons learned from CPSQA’s 2014 event and to begin planning for the new CPSEN’s annual event for 2015. A number of important issues were discussed and decisions made. More volunteers will be required but it is expected there will be no difficulty assembling a team for the ninth annual event – to be held early in 2015.

2014-06-18: At the first CPSEN Networking meeting this date, our new Chair, Phil Grandy, presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Jean Tourigny – our outgoing Chair. As noted in an earlier entry to this page, Jean’s contributions to then CPSQA were considerable and we owe him a large thanks for all his good work. We are hoping Jean will continue to participate in CPSEN events.

At this inaugural CPSEN NCR Networking meeting, our Chair briefed those attending on the changes that have come about as a result of our Strategic Planning Retreat reported below. To view the contents of Phil’s briefing please click here.

2014-05-30: On this date, this new website was launched – early. Visitors are encouraged to take the time to have a comprehensive look at this site. We then would welcome any comments you may have.

2014-05-21: Since 1996, this organization has been known as the Canadian Public Sector Quality Association (CPSQA). In the spring of 2014, a Strategic Planning meeting was held that was attended by CPSQA Directors and a number of the Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fair Committee members. The purpose of that meeting was to pause to reflect on our Mission, Vision and what steps to take to make our organization even more relevant and supportive of the Canadian Public Sector.

At our March 20th meeting, and after three years at the helm, Jean Tourignystepped down from the position of Chair. His contributions to the Association were considerable and we owe him a large thanks for all his good work. We hope to see more of him as he has indicated he would like to maintain a link with our Association. During that same meeting, Directors acclaimed Phil Grandy as our new Chair. We will hear soon from him in this space.

Also, some sweeping changes have been made to our Association. To start with, we updated our Mission and Vision statements but we have gone further. Our Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fairs will be integrated with our organization’s other activities and the two websites merged into one new one. The new site will contain all networking meeting reports, Fair details and presentations along with a Fair archive.

Furthermore, after looking at the relevance of our organization and its place as an effective major source in Canada for information and tools related to Public Sectororganizational excellence, we have decided to change our name. A contest between two proposed names ended April 20th and the new name is the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Network (CPSEN).

2014-03-20: CPSQA held a Strategic Planning session facilitated by past-Chair John Thomas. Volunteers from the CPSQA Directors pool and from the Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fair Committee gathered in the Richmond Room at Ottawa City Hall to consider the possible need to make some changes to the CPSQA Mission, Vision and the CPSQA Brand itself.

The session was arranged owing to some changes in the operation of CPSQA – particularly with respect to the annual Ottawa Public Sector Quality Fair. Now that CPSQA is the sole host of the annual Fairs, Directors felt it would be a good idea to take a pause and review where CPSQA is now and where it can go in the future. There were a number of group discussions – with the assembled volunteers working in two groups. There was a lengthy discussion of the Mission for CPSQA and some fine new wording was developed. A SWOT analysis was examined in groups and useful statements added. Similarly, the Vision statement was examined and some new wording developed. When it came to Branding, there was a general feeling that “Quality” does not have the same significance as it once had and it was proposed that it might make sense for a name change. The most popular one under discussion is the Canadian Public Sector Excellence Network. It is intended that a working document providing more details of the meeting outcomes will be available soon.

The meeting ended with confirmation of a new Chair for CPSQA. Phil Grandy was acclaimed as Chair and is featured on our Home Page.